Disinheritance creates antagonism amongst survivors and plunges whole families into will-contests that they can ill-afford. As such it jeopardizes mental health and social cohesion, not to mention economic security. The goal of this research is to study the aftermath of disinheritance empirically, with particular emphasis on social and demographic attributes of families which contest a disinheritance and those that do not. The data will consist of wills and will-contests on file in Surrogate's Court. Both of these sources are part of the public record. They are unique, methodologically speaking, because they contain both quantitative and qualitative data. There are detailed financial statements in peoples' wills, as well as data on the age, sex and marital status of beneficiaries. In addition, however, wills contain sentimental and declarative statements contained in peoples' wills, and to the dispositions and refutations filed by survivors. A study of disinheritance and will-contests can reveal some motives for depriving children or siblings of their birthrights. Furthermore, it can indicate how families in the throes of a crisis are socially structured. It is possible, for example, to analyze the demographics of such families, with particular emphasis on age, sex, and marital status for all parties concerned. Ultimately, an analysis of the demographic and social structure can reveal some of the social conditions under which a family mobilizes to contest a forebear's will. Standard demographic and multivariate techniques will be serviceable for a study of this type. In addition, however, Markov Chain theory will also be pressed into service. The goal is to create a model for predicting the points at which families are most vulnerable to disinheritance over the course of two or three consecutive probates. The analogy between inheritance and the Absorbing Markov Chain has made for this reason.